Project Based Learning...by accident

It all started when a couple of my students read a book where some owl students put on a spring festival for their school.  They immediately raced to me with the book in hand, and asked if they too could put on this fabulous festival.  With only a few weeks before spring break and spring conferences (which means a large battery of assessments), I knew it would be a challenge, but those big eyes, mile a minute words filled with excitement and ideas, and sweet little smiles one me over...in a flash.    So, we agreed to a class spring festival and it began.  The three students brainstormed ideas of activities that they would like to do and we negotiated the activities and settled on a set number.  I agreed to give them the Friday before spring break.  They decided on the following:  1)  They would write a spring article using text features we'd been studying. 2)  They would make a scavenger hunt for outside on the playground. 3)  They would design a noun guessing game with spring nouns. 4)  They would pick 3 art projects to make off Pinterest. 5)  They would author a Kahoot it! question game with questions based off the article.  

This is one of the to do lists.

These are the art projects the 3 girls chose off Pinterest.

A stage in the development of the festival.  Lists and lists and lists! Edited articles.

Students created a noun game where students gave clues on their spring noun and their partners guessed the spring noun.

It was a GREAT experience.  The students have always had a block of Daily 5 time that they could learn what interested them in the context of reading and writing, but these three students took it to another level.  They were so motivated and the bulk of what they were doing was all literacy related.  The learning extended beyond what I would have expected.  They had to be organized, accepting of feedback, and they truly had to focus on time management, all in first grade!  As a teacher, I let go of total control and instead guided their learning.  Did I provide them some structure? Absolutely.  Did they take ownership of their learning.  Yes, they did.   Reflecting, if I had a whole class creating spring festivals I would need to provide a lot more structure and guidance, but it inspired me to create a project forum for our next unit.  I'm so excited and I can't wait to see where the adventure will take us!